In the contexts of

software architecture Software architecture is the fundamental structure of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. ...

service-orientation Service-orientation is a design paradigm for computer software in the form of services. The principles of service-oriented design stress the separation of concerns in the software. Applying service-orientation results in units of software partiti ...

and

service-oriented architecture In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. By consequence, it is also applied in the field of software design where services are provide ...

, the term service refers to a software

functionality Function or functionality may refer to: Computing * Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards * Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system * Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...

, or a set of software functionalities (such as the retrieval of specified information or the execution of a set of operations) with a purpose that different clients can reuse for different purposes, together with the policies that should control its usage (based on the identity of the client requesting the service, for example). OASIS defines a service as "a mechanism to enable access to one or more capabilities, where the access is provided using a prescribed interface and is exercised consistent with constraints and policies as specified by the service description".OASIS Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture 1.0

Service engineering

A business analyst, domain expert, and/or enterprise architecture team will develop the organization's service model first by defining the top level business functions. Once the business functions are defined, they are further partitioned and refined into services that represent the processes and activities needed to manage the assets of the organization in their various states. One example is the separation of the business function "Manage Orders" into services such as "Create Order," "Fulfill Order," "Ship Order," "Invoice Order" and "Cancel/Update Order." These business functions have to have a

granularity Granularity (also called graininess), the condition of existing in granules or grains, refers to the extent to which a material or system is composed of distinguishable pieces. It can either refer to the extent to which a larger entity is sub ...

that is adequate in the given project and domain context. Many analysis and design methods can be used for service engineering, both general purpose ones such as

OpenUP The Open Unified Process (OpenUP) is a part of the Eclipse Process Framework (EPF), an open source process framework developed within the Eclipse Foundation. Its goals are to make it easy to adopt the core of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) / U ...

and Domain-Driven Design as well as those discussed under Service-oriented modeling.

Notes

{{Authority control Service-oriented (business computing)